1. Field
Aspects of the present invention relate to a touch screen panel and a fabricating method thereof, and more particularly, relate to a touch screen panel capable of ensuring the stability of a driving/shield electrode formed at one surface of the touch screen panel, and a fabricating method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A touch screen panel is an input device through which a user's command can be input through a screen of an image display apparatus after instruction contents are displayed on the screen. The input can be the selection of the instruction contents by a finger of a person or an object on the screen. To this end, the touch screen panel is provided on the front surface of the image display apparatus to convert a contact position at which the finger of the person or the object directly makes contact with the touch screen panel into an electrical signal. Thus, the instruction contents selected at the contact position are regarded as an input signal. Such a touch screen panel can replace a separate input device (e.g., a keyboard and a mouse) operating after being connected to the image display apparatus, and therefore the use range of the touch screen panel is gradually expanded.
Known types of touch screen panel include a resistive touch screen panel, a photosensitive touch screen panel, a capacitive touch screen panel and the like. Among these types, the capacitive touch screen panel includes first detection cells formed along a first direction, and second detection cells formed along a second direction. The capacitive touch screen panel detects a point at which the capacitance changes when a finger of a person or an object makes contact with the touch screen panel, to understand a contact position.
In general, such first and second first detection cells are alternately disposed on one surface (e.g., an upper surface) of the touch screen panel. Driving/shield electrodes may be formed on the other surface (e.g., a lower surface) of the touch screen panel. Such a driving/shield electrode may be used as a driving electrode (another driving electrode other than the first and second first detection cells) of the touch screen panel, or may be connected to a constant voltage source such as a ground power source to be used as a shield electrode for ensuring stability between the touch screen panel and a display panel.
The driving/shield electrodes are formed on the other surface facing the surface of the touch screen panel, on which the first and second first detection cells are formed. The driving/shield electrodes may be formed on the whole area including an active touch area, in which the first and second first detection cells are disposed, and an inactive touch area around the active touch area. Thus, the driving/shield electrodes generally are formed as a layer throughout a mother substrate for forming a plurality of touch screen panels, and then are separated from each other by the touch screen panel in a scribing step without passing through a separate patterning process.
In such a case, although a passivation layer for protecting the driving/shield electrodes has been formed on the other surface of the touch screen panel, on which the driving/shield electrodes are formed, cut sides of the driving/shield electrodes are exposed to the outside at the scribing step for dividing each touch screen panel from the mother substrate. Therefore, moisture and the like infiltrates into the exposed sides of the driving/shield electrodes, causes a short-circuit between the driving/shield electrodes and a structure of a set-side (for example, a conductive structure such as a case), resulting in an abnormal operation of the touch screen panel.